Mali has suspended schools and universities nationwide due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a blockade on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents.<\/p>\n
Education Minister Amadou Sy Savane announced on state television that all education institutions would remain shut until 9 November, saying the movement of staff and students had been affected by the blockade.<\/p>\n
He said the authorities were \u201cdoing everything possible\u201d to end the crisis so that classes could resume on 10 November.<\/p>\n
For weeks, Mali has been hit by a fuel shortage, especially in the capital Bamako, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by attacking tankers on major highways.<\/p>\n
Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are brought in by road from neighbouring states such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city\u2019s usually crowded streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.<\/p>\n
The military government had earlier this month assured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has persisted.<\/p>\n
Last week, the US Embassy in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would leave Mali amid the worsening fuel shortage and growing security concerns.<\/p>\n
It said the fuel disruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the \u201cpotential to disrupt the overall security situation in unpredictable ways\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mali is currently ruled by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Go\u00efta, who seized power in a coup in 2021.<\/p>\n
The junta had popular support when it took power, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.<\/p>\n
The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been deployed in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency.<\/p>\n
Both have left since the junta took over, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to tackle the insecurity.<\/p>\n
However, the jihadist insurgency has continued and large parts of the north and east of the country remain outside government control.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mali has suspended schools and universities nationwide due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a blockade on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents. Education Minister Amadou Sy Savane announced on state television that all education institutions would remain shut until 9 November, saying the movement of staff and students had been affected by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}